Mr Neumark's granddaughters, Tilly, 11 and Dora, 9 cut the ribbon to officially open the terrace in front of a small crowd today.

The girls also had the chance to name the two baby red pandas, Mei Mei and Tao Tao, who were born to parents Nuri and Ming Ming.

Mr Neumark said: "We're delighted to be here to officially open the Prytherch Himalayan Terrace, which we hope proves successful.

"We wanted our grandchildren to be involved from the start. We wanted them to begin to understand how fortunate they are for getting into philanthropy from an early age.

"We also wanted to help the conservation of these beautiful animals. We hope it will enable us to take our girls to Nepal where the pandas come from, so we can learn about the research on these aninamls.

"With many of the world's habitat destroyed by man, it's important that facilities like this exist for mankind to enjoy for years to come."

The terrace has Himalayan plants, including Asian bamboos and cameras for viewing the Red Pandas in their home, which will be available on the zoo's website in the coming weeks.

Gillian Clarke, the national poet of Wales, also helped to official open the exhibit by reading a poem about red pandas.

She said: "I'm thrilled to be invited to be here and extremely honoured. It occurred to me that deep in their sleep, these pandas will be dreaming of the Himalayas. They bring the Himalayan forest here not because you've created it for them, but in their imaginations.

"Now I've seen these little creatures for real, they are just beautiful."

Zoo Director, Nick Jackson said, "This whole development depended on the generosity of Peter and Maria Neumark and we are over the moon with gratitude to them both."